Welcome to Tokyo College! Would you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? What are your research interests?
Thank you for the warm welcome! I graduated with my Ph.D. in Japanese Linguistics from the Ohio State University in 2019. Since then, I have been a Hosei International Fund Fellow at Hosei University from 2019-2020, and I worked as a lecturer of Japanese at the Ohio State University until this past April. While in graduate school, I taught beginning and intermediate Japanese for five years, and I have also done consulting work related to Japanese language and education.
My area of specialty is language use in popular media, and I am particularly interested in linguistic stereotypes and how they manifest in fiction. I have looked at this topic from a variety of different angles, including the interaction between first-person pronoun usage and masculine ideologies in shōnen anime, how linguistic resources are used to construct a persona in pop lyrics, as well as what script variation can tell us about how a magazine editorial board views its readership.
Please describe your current project in a layperson’s terms.
At present, I’m working on a few different projects. First, I have a few manuscripts in progress, including one that looks at the use of katakana script as a way portraying its user as Other within a narrative. In fiction, it is common for characters who use Japanese in a way that differs from the local “norm” to be marked with katakana, especially if those characters are not Japanese. This paper analyzes how this use of katakana manifests in fantasy narratives where “Japan” doesn’t exist, and what the use of katakana in this manner can tell us about our relationship with script, semiotics, and linguistic difference.
A larger project I am working on is a broad exploration of how language use in popular media affects day-to-day communication among media consumers. More specifically, I am interested in how linguistic styles that are highly stylized maintain their use in popular media, and how popular media consumers utilize those styles in conversational play. To give an example, one such speech style known as “o-jōsama kotoba” (‘young lady speech’) is a kind of hyper-feminine variety associated with a sense of affluence and refinement, and though uncommon in everyday life, it enjoys frequent use in fictional media across a variety of genres. Indeed, because we are currently experiencing a bit of an o-jōsama “boom,” it is also possible to find evidence of its use as a tool for conversational play among consumers of these media works. Because of its current prevalence and popularity, a highly characterological style like o-jōsama kotoba can provide a perfect window into the relationship between media, consumer, and language.
You are part of the Tokyo College project team. What are your responsibilities here? And what else would you want to get out of your time at the College?
In addition to the typical duties carried out by the project team, I am also doing in-house Japanese-to-English translation and English proofreading for the College. So far, my experience in translation has been largely freelance, so I am looking forward to doing dedicated work for a specific organization, especially within academia.
As for what I would like to get out of my time here at the College, I am immensely pleased to be surrounded by such a diverse array of scholars housed under one academic unit. Research can often feel like a lonely endeavor, but with Tokyo College’s frequent research meetings and many working groups, it feels like an easy environment for collaboration and inspiration. While here, I plan to continue publishing and presenting on my research, including writing a book on the subject.
